When Anarchy Reigned
by Abyss the Hedgehog
Summary: A dumb fic based on the premise that Black Whip is Jack Cayman. Izuku learns how to access the collective consciousness to try and get some knowledge out of previous OFA users. But, sometimes, it might be wise not to peer into the past too much - it might not be what one think it is.
1. Chapter 1

"Black Whip-san?"

The man jerked back, torn away from his thoughts (which was a bit of a doozy; having thoughts in some other guy's thoughts while you are a thought…) and having a look at the green-haired kid. Izuku, his name was. At a tender age of fifteen he became the ninth holder of One for All – the Quirk to end all Quirks, a cumulative power that would only increase in greatness over generations.

As it turned out recently, the user of OFA got to enjoy the benefits of having all previous Quirks that were given up to nurse this one. The man's Black Whip was the first to go off, and so it was up to him (and to Nana, who dropped by now and then to say hi; collective consciousness is a weird thing) to get the kid through the worst. Unfortunately, today was a bit of a special day for him, not that Izuku could possibly know that.

"Ah, sorry, spaced out for a moment. What's up?"

"Are you alright? You seem… melancholic? If that makes sense." It sure did make sense.

"Sorry, kid. Today's a bit of an anniversary for me." Izuku perked up.

"Oh, um…! Are you, uh, perhaps thinking about the transference of One for All from the previous user…?" The man waved him off with a chuckle. The kid was a huge nerd, but very driven and with a strong sense of justice.

"Nah, nothing like that. Just thinking of Stela."

"S-stela?"

"My daughter. Today's the anniversary of her death."

For Midoriya Izuku, mastering One for All was a crucial goal in life. There was, however, only so much he could do to physically train it, especially given that he had to contend with having a total of eight Quirks at his disposal, OFA included. _Eight_ Quirks? Was that even physically possible? His control of All Might's gift was getting better, but he still had ways to go!

Being known for his tendency to analyzing and overthinking things, that was how Izuku ended up meeting the Black Whip user once again. First time they've met during a Joint Hero Training with Class B, when the Quirk manifested and Izuku briefly lost contact with reality. One quick pep talk was all he got – well, more like one quick pep monologue – but then, by stroke of luck, they met again. Izuku's natural conclusion was that through some manner of meditation he would be able to talk with the Black Whip user.

While he had to explain to some of his concerned teammates that he was not conducting a ritual of any kind – Kaminari found him sitting crosslegged before the skull-shaped candle, the only candle Izuku could actually find, or more precisely borrow from Tokoyami – the curious methods yielded some results. Over time he managed to not just see, but to converse with the Black Whip user. These conversations were brief, but each felt succinct and meaningful to the young UA student.

Then All Might's master, Nana Shimura, just kind of showed up of her own volition, mostly to congratulate him on figuring out how to talk to the previous generations (currently just her and the bald man). Over time, who knew, perhaps he would be able to reach deeper into the past and talk even with the original user of the Quirk, All for One's younger brother from many years past…?

Today was the longest the two of them conversed, and so it was easier to tell that the bald man was different. A daughter's death? Hm. Did he ever think of these people as people rather than just subsequent OFA users? A shaming realization, that. "Sorry, kid. I'll probably not going to be much useful today."

"Um… please take your time, Black Whip-san."

"It's Cayman."

"Pardon?"

"Jack Cayman. That's my name." A distinctly un-Japanese name. So OFA traveled around the world-wait, hold on, that was the train of thought you were supposed to avoid, Izuku. Calm down. "You're Midoriya, right?" The boy nodded, suddenly feeling a lump in his throat at actually being addressed by his name rather than simply as a "kid". "Alright. Good we have that out of the way."

"Cayman-san… what was your life like?"

It was Izuku's solemn vow to understand the previous OFA users, one after another. This included All Might as well, much to his flustered delight ("What brought all these questions on, Young Midoriya?"). It made sense to the young student: the more he knew of these people of the past, the more he could make out of their power. And, really, after spending so long just neglecting them, even if it sounded strange to neglect one's figment of collective consciousness, it was the least he could do.

Cayman didn't reply immediately, twirling a cigar between his fingers. He didn't light it, merely staring at it for a few pregnant moments before pocketing it away. "It was a shithole, honestly." He said, recalling what little could be recalled. Izuku's vision blurred for a moment. Suddenly, they weren't in the featureless black space with a spotlight shining on them, but in a ruined arena in the middle of the desert. "How much do you know of history, give or take, two hundred years back?"

"It was a turbulent time."

"That's one way of saying it. Well, Quirks were only just showing up. Right on cue, since without them the world would have been fucked." Izuku tilted his head questioningly. Cayman didn't continue, merely electing to stand up and lead the boy on a journey through the past. "What you see is a result of a World War Three and environmental destruction by the winners. Before people had Quirks, well… they had mutations instead." It was obvious from the way it was worded that "mutations" were nothing positive. Even today, Quirks could mutate and fly in the face of hereditary rules of genetics. Izuku briefly thought of Eri as he followed Cayman. The desert ruins stretched out for a while and then some, but there was hardly a soul to be found.

"If you didn't want to mutate, you had three options. You could either become a cyborg, get nanomachines, or live in a few uncontaminated zones in the world." The man explained, idly tapping his metal prosthesis to say he chose the former.

"Wait, but… cyborgs? Nanomachines? There was technology like that back then, two hundred years ago?" Some have said in the past that the emergence and mass proliferation of Quirks prevented mankind from spacefaring, but… "A-and how did the world recover?"

"Generous Quirk usage. They used to be wild, but unfocused. Good for big empty terrain. You could total whole scores of ruined buildings or make the grass grow or whatever. I lucked out myself, got something that's less of a hassle." He chuckled, as the Black Whip materialized behind him, grasping at air for a few seconds before dissipating. "Lots of the tech just got lost or destroyed in the process."

"It's… a lot to take in all at once, Cayman-san."

"You asked."

Eventually, the desert ceased – they were in some kind of city that came straight out of a cyberpunk nightmare. This one was choke-full of people for a change: disfigured humanoids with odd postures and limbs, some with crudely grafted cybernetics. Another one, a beast of a man(?), burst out from behind the wall – a mass of scaly muscle and snarling rage – and began engaging some of the locals.

Eye-searing neons, chaotic plumbing, kanji signs that seemed to be plastered all over more for the effect than for what they actually meant… this was a world of complete fiction to Izuku. "Stark contrast from how it is now, huh?" Cayman chuckled, idly twirling a cigar between his fingers again. The fight between the scaled mutant and the disfigured locals moved right to them, but the hurled bodies harmlessly passed through the both of them. "Welcome to Hong Long, the scum of villainy and fuckups second only to Altambra, City of Tomorrow."

"I've never heard of these places..."

"Probably 'cause most of them got wrecked during the Quirk expansion, or got renamed into something to forget about the shitty past." Izuku nodded uncertainly. So far this journey had been a very sobering look into the past, but he had yet to learn something about Cayman himself. "Almost makes you nostalgic."

"How… Cayman-san, how do you figure into all this?" The man stopped, pocketing the cigar and turning to face Izuku. The smile he gave him was crooked – almost as if it was ashamed of its existence, and yet still took pride in its being.

"I was a Chaser. One of the best in the business, if I may say so myself." And then the metal prosthesis exploded into a… dual chainsaw? White-hot dual chainsaw? Izuku stared, trying and failing to pick his jaw back up. "Deathwatcher Jack, they called me, because I would attend the execution of every scumbag, lowlife, and piece of shit I ever brought in." As he stared at this huge man in leathers, with a chainsaw – a double chainsaw! - for an arm, Midoriya Izuku came to a startling realization.

Perhaps not all users of One for All were heroes.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack Cayman wasn't a good man. Not by a long shot.

He wasn't a villain, or at least he wasn't a villain then – these days, a man of similar practices would find himself against pro-heroes shortly. A combination of a mercenary, a loan shark, a bounty hunter – Chaser. There was a whole guild of them, and he was one of the best.

Izuku stared at the skeleton skyscrapers, pale shadows of what they might have been once, the small and filthy bars and pubs, and roads crawling with Killseekers – the locals with an apt name. Mutated, disfigured, in the eternal search for victims. And yet, this was the city that was often named the City of Tomorrow.

"This is the bar where this whole misadventure started." Cayman explained, gesturing at the rundown bar ahead of them. "The BPS guys were looking for the same man that I was." BPS stood for The Bureau of Public Safety – the closest thing the City of Milvalen had to a police, Milvalen being one of the few places left on Earth that was habitable without anything to make it possible.

"Maximillian Caxton, you said his name was." Izuku paused, not sure if he should stress out the next part. Cayman gave him a look and then chuckled mirthlessly.

"The guy responsible for Stela's death, yeah. Some BPS ace he was. Me and his team chased him all the way down to that ruined arena you first saw." They both watched some Killseeker get lobbed out of the bar at high speeds, splattering inelegantly at a wall nearby. The onlookers did nothing but laugh at their fellow's misfortune.

"But I wasn't initially looking for him out of revenge. His daughter wanted to get her dad back." The man tapped his temple as they resumed walking through the mindscape. "Almost got lost in the thrill of the hunt, if you will. Still, we brought that mental wreck of a man back to Milvalen for a fair trail."

"And what happened then?"

"And then they dragged him through a kangaroo court. It was pure spite and saving face, the kind that only self-righteous politician types are capable of." Oh. So the story had no good ending? Through the glimpses of their earlier conversations, Izuku could piece together the rough story: Maximillian was mentally unwell – a result of PTSD, PTSD meds and a hearty helping of heady liquor, on top of his cybernetics's bugging out. He already saw that man: a behemoth that stood taller than the tallest men, made seemingly entirely out of cutting-edge technology, with a withering look of madness and misanthropy that made Shigaraki Tomura's hateful glares seem like mere pouts.

"His students took it pretty well… Jeannie less so." Cayman sighed, a cigar twirling between his fingers again as they walked, idly looking over to a mutant feasting upon the hapless Killseeker. It was the definition of urban jungle, where the strongest won. The world of old, the turbulent land from which both OFA and AFO originated. Before he could ponder on it any further, the world began to break down. The limits of this meditation were up.

"Well, looks like that's that for now." Cayman nodded to himself, pocketing the cigar. "Take care, kid. We can discuss the Quirks and all that the next day."

* * *

"We have a situation in Musutafu Central, sir."

"Define "situation", Jorogumo."

"Well, uh, looks like a villain, but he's… pretty passive. He's just walking around, like he's searching for something. Honestly, I can't tell if the guy's a he, even."

"Approach carefully. Might just be a tourist. You know how it is, some people don't luck out on their Quirks." Jorogumo Tsuchi didn't need to be told that twice – his parents left him with a very prominent case of spider head, hairy mandibles and all. "We'll be notifying local heroes just in case. Central out." But how to approach… whatever the fuck this guy was?

For starters, he was huge. He was so huge, he made All Might in his prime look like a freshman. The weird costume he wore – some kind of "rusted cyberpunk robot" aesthetic – did nothing to distract from the main draw: the man looked dead as a doornail. Not dead as in emotionally dry or nothing like that. The guy's head was a decrepit skull so old and withered, it was barely holding together. There wasn't much else of the body visible, but something told the spider-headed policeman it didn't look pretty underneath either.

So far he was only trying to ask others about something – the guy talked despite looking positively unable to do so; how about that? - but most people quite obviously just steered clear of the man or ran for the hills. He wasn't chasing or causing havoc, so there was no need for a dire intervention, but… man, was this _thing_ spooky.

Alright, get it together. He might not have been a pro-hero, but policemen had their pride and accomplishments too. Taking a deep breath, Jorogumo approached the steel behemoth. "Excuse me, sir..."

The behemoth turned around with a pained creak of rusting metal to look at him. Or did he? With no eyes in that old skull, there was no telling. The policeman's earlier courage vanished like a spring snow. They stared at each other for a few moments before the giant tapped his rusted collar. The voice came out; garbled and in desperate need of readjustment, but, on first hearing, it seemed to belong to a middle-aged man; a grizzled veteran.

"**You the police?"**

"Y-yes! I mean, yes! Sir, you're… uh, you're disturbing the peace." The huge zombie robot thing tilted its head before a slow, steady chuckle – broken by the sample looping a few times and then coming to a screeching halt – came from the collar.

"**That-that-that-that right?"**

"Well, yes..."

"**Then maybe you can help me out, officer."** Oh gods, anything to get this freakozoid out of here! **"I'm looking for-for-for-for, fucking Christ, wait, hold up. Do you know any cyborg specialists around these parts?" **Jorogumo stared at the weird zombie thing man with mandibles wide open in disbelief. **"Probably not. Well, whate-e-e-ever. I'm looking for a guy named..." **He leaned back, tapping his withered temple in thought.

"Y-yes…?"

"**Jack Cayman. About forty, bald, built like a brick-ick-ick-ithouse. Lots of leathers." **Ignoring the fact that the name was definitely foreign, that was one hell of a succinct description.

"Uh… and w-who's looking for him?"

"**Maximillian Caxton-ton-ton."**


End file.
